Second Chances And Chance Encounters
by MiladyGirl
Summary: Years after Blake leaves the BAU, Rossi runs into "the one that got away" in a bar. Oneshot.


**A/N**

Hello. *waves sheepishly* I am trying to recover fics/documents I lost when laptop went to computer heaven, but I can't get them all out free. This was one of those that I remembered the general storyline of, but not the exact fic. But I liked it, so I tried to recreate it. I especially liked it after running into "Grey Gardens". NOBODY TOLD ME JEANNE HAS PLAYED JACKIE KENNEDY! O_O

Okay. I know this doesn't make much sense, but that was kind of the thing I liked about the general scene. I hope you'll like it too. It's kind of an experimental thing for me, so, I'm not sure I'll do more like it, but still. :)

* * *

David Rossi sat by the bar sipping his second scotch for the evening when someone – a woman, judging from her perfume, but he didn't even bother looking at her, no woman had interested him since _her_ , and that was years ago – sat down next to him.

"Fancy meeting you here," she said in a low-pitched, slightly husky voice that was only too familiar – after all, the woman it belonged to had haunted his dreams ever since she had been gone from the BAU – and raised a finger at the bartender. "Martini, please. And go easy on the Vermouth."

"Hello, Blake." His mouth felt dry, and he took a sip of his drink to hide that. She threw her head back and let out an amazing, full laugh that he had never heard before. SSA Blake hadn't been prone to laughter, but judging from this, she should have been. It was genuine, somewhat raspy, and came from deep within.

"Oh my God, it _has_ been a while, hasn't it?" she remarked and shook her long, wonderfully thick hair out of her face as she reached for the drink that had emerged in front of her. "If you're not going to call me Alex, I'm afraid you have to get used to calling me Miller."

"Remarried?" he asked, hoping his disappointment didn't shine through.

"Divorced," she said. "Very much so. Miller is my maiden name."

"Right."

She smiled and reached past him to grab a handful of peanuts. When she leaned into his personal space, another whiff of her perfume hit him, and he felt dizzy.

"Care to tell me why you felt disappointed when you thought I had remarried?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Yes you do. I'm a profiler too, Dave," she said simply and tossed the peanuts into her mouth and began chewing, her body language relaxed, almost mischievous, but her dark, deep eyes flashed with something much more sombre. "Don't play games with me."

"Why not?" he said, slowly finding his pace. "You certainly play games with me, Alex."

She stopped chewing for a moment, as if considering this, then she smiled.

"Yes… I am, aren't I?" she said cheerfully, swallowed the mouthful she was working on, and washed it down with some Martini. "You look good, David."

His eyes swiftly wandered from the exposed cleavage – an area of Alex Blake that he had never gotten to see before – and up to her face, lingering at her mouth for a couple of seconds before reaching her eyes. As stunning as she was, her eyes were still the part of her that could almost render him speechless. They were so dark even daylight seemed to drown in them, so intense fire couldn't hold its own against them, and so captivating SSA Rossi had no chance of pulling away before falling into them.

"So do you, Alex. You look…" he managed to cut himself off before he finished the sentence, knowing that saying anything along those lines to a woman was like navigating a minefield. But this specific woman merely smiled, an open, eager smile, before she filled in what he had been too much of a gentleman to say.

"Just say it, Dave. I look younger. I've heard that a lot. Apparently a divorce and a facelift tend to do that to a woman."

His jaw dropped.

"A, uh, you…"

"How eloquently put," she remarked and sipped her Martini again, her eyes sparkling even as her face remained stern and inexpressive. She wore more (and far more dramatic) eye makeup than she had back at the BAU, but it didn't look out of place even though she must be in her mid-fifties at this point. She had aged well, this enigma of a woman, somehow not only managing to balance on the narrow knife-edge between thrilling and sophisticated, but also doing so effortlessly, almost as if it was a simple entertainment to her.

Then the implied smile gave way for a real one, and it was sweet, girlish, even, and it brought out dimples in her cheeks.

"I'm messing with you," she said. "It's all me. All natural. No enhancement, apart from some makeup. I _am_ divorced though. And I think that alone took ten years off my appearance. James…" she sighed deeply.

"You don't have to," he assured her.

"But I do. James liked to think of me as his possession. He never hurt me, he wasn't like that, but he preferred it if I was mousy enough not to be noticed whenever I went outside of our house. When we parted ways I decided that I am _not_ mousy. I may not be Marilyn Monroe, but that doesn't mean I'm completely uninteresting."

"You're more like Jackie Kennedy than Marilyn," he said, and she smiled again.

"Oh, I should hope _not_. To have my entire self being defined based on the man I've been married to? No, thank you."

"I meant you have that natural class about you. And… you do look a lot like Jackie. That hair. Those dark eyes."

She raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

"If it helps my case here, I'll have you know Jacqueline Kennedy was my first crush," Rossi admitted. "Although it wasn't referred to as 'crush' in those days."

"What's the case you're trying to help here?" she asked, her voice innocent enough, the look on her face anything but. She actually looked _smug_ , as if she had gotten him exactly where she wanted him and he was too dumb to see he was being manipulated.

"Alex…"

She emptied her glass, speared the olive on a toothpick and put it between her lips, sucking quietly on it until he wanted nothing more in the world than to take a bite out of the olive and then suck at her lips. He could imagine how salty her mouth would taste right now, and it drove him mad. Still, her large eyes, innocent on the surface but teasing, _delighted_ , underneath, seemed to pin him to his chair.

"I will pretend I have no idea what you want until you spell it out for me," she said. "Just knowing what other people want from me is not going to make me give them _anything_ unless they ask for it. That is one of the first life lessons I learned all by myself, with nobody pointing it out. I am not alive to cater to anybody's wants or needs but my own."

"You want to know what I want?" he said. She nodded. "I want _you_ , Alex. I have wanted you since the day I first saw you."

"Because I remind you of Jackie Kennedy?" she mocked, but she was still smiling.

"No. Because you are the most beautiful, most intriguing, most intelligent, bravest and most no-nonsense woman I have ever met. Because you have something that no other woman I've ever met has possessed. Don't ask me what it is, I don't know myself. But when I look at you I see strong weakness, I see distant presence, I see cold heat. You are your own contradiction. I have profiled and unlocked mysteries for decades, Alex, but you are a riddle I can never hope to solve, and I love that about you."

She reached out and touched his hand.

"I bet you say that to _all_ the girls," she exhaled, and then he captured her lips with his and whatever else she had planned on saying was lost in a long-awaited kiss.


End file.
